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Retruning to nature

May 29, 2005 By Uncategorized

To the extent that people separate themselves from nature, they spin out further and further from the centre. At the same time, a centripetal effect asserts itself and the desire to return to nature arises. But if people merely become caught up in reacting, moving to the left or to the right, depending on conditions, the result is only more activity. The non-moving point of origin, which lies outside the realm of relativity, is passed over, unnoticed.

— Japanese farmer Masanobu Fukuoka, quoted in TC McLuhan’s The Way of the Earth, p. 151

My work with group processes has always moved towards what comes to us most naturally. This is why my facilitation practice seems to culminate in Open Space Technology, where the natural and pervasive dynamics of self-organization can take over. Being a conscious part of a self-organizing system requires that we remember how to be a part of nature again. And so the four practices of Open Space – opening, inviting, holding and grounding – become essential for creating a container in which people return to their most basic and intuitive processes – conversation, choice, collaboration and contemplation – to help move them forward. When a group is truly ready to come back to what has always been Open Space, one finds reactions of astonishment and surprise that work could really be this easy and this deep, all at the same time.

It’s worth looking at what we are as humans – parts of the vast whole that holds us – and remember that our very oldest teachings tell us how to live within this enfolded context rather than futilely struggle against it.